Salt Lake fans were in a festive mood at Dick’s Sporting Goods Park in Commerce City Saturday night, August 4, 2012. (Karl Gehring, The Denver Post)

The last time Pablo Mastroeni won the Rocky Mountain Cup, he didn’t just stoke the flames of a budding rivalry between the Rapids and Real Salt Lake, he brought a blowtorch.

Eight years later, a calmer and more measured Mastroeni returns to Utah on Saturday — his first time as a coach — with the Rocky Mountain Cup in tow for the first time since.

For those who don’t recall that night in early September 2006 at Rice-Eccles Stadium, the Rapids had just won their second consecutive Rocky Mountain Cup. Mastroeni, the Rapids captain, removed his jersey, waved it, tucked it into his shorts and then pointed at it.

“That was long ago. That’s when I was a kid. … I don’t remember much about that,” Mastroeni said this week when asked if he remembered what was said between the two following the second edition of the Rocky Mountain Cup.